An ancient painting of Nüwa and Fuxi unearthed in Xinjiang, holding the tools of creation - compass and square.

Hugh Nibley gave a lecture in 1975 on “Sacred Vestments” which was later transcribed and included in the collected works volume Temple and Cosmos (pgs. 91-132).  The entire paper is fascinating, and highly recommended reading.  One of the things he wrote about were certain Chinese artifacts which had been found depicting two mythological gods, Nüwa and Fuxi, and the tools they hold:

Most challenging are the veils from Taoist-Buddhist tombs at Astana, in Central Asia, originally Nestorian (Christian) country, discovered by Sir Aurel Stein in 1925… We see the king and queen embracing at their wedding, the king holding the square on high, the queen a compass. As it is explained, the instruments are taking the measurements of the universe, at the founding of a new world and a new age. Above the couple’s head is the sun surrounded by twelve disks, meaning the circle of the year or the navel of the universe. Among the stars depicted, Stein and his assistant identified the Big Dipper alone as clearly discernable. As noted above, the garment draped over the coffin and the veil hung on the wall had the same marks; they were placed on the garment as reminders of personal commitment, while on the veil they represent man’s place in the cosmos. (pg. 111-12)

Nibley included drawings of this depiction found on veils in the Astana Tombs in Xinjiang, China, with a caption that reads:

In the underground tomb of Fan Yen-Shih, d. A.D. 689, two painted silk veils show the First Ancestors of the Chinese, their entwined serpect bodies rotating around the invisible vertical axis mundi.  Fu Hsi holds the set-square and plumb bob … as he rules the four-cornered earth, while his sister-wife Nü-wa holds the compass pointing up, as she rules the circling heavens.  The phrase kuci chü is used by modern Chinese to signify “the way things should be, the moral standard”; it literally means the compass and the square. (pg. 115)

See the photos at the end of the post for more examples of this icon.  The veil redrawn in Temple and Cosmos is shown photographed in the second row, fourth from the left. 

Wikipedia notes, “Nüwa and Fuxi were pictured as having snake like tails interlocked in an Eastern Han dynasty (206 – 220 A.D.) mural in the Wuliang Temple in Jiaxiang county, Shandong province.”  It also notes the various roles of Nüwa (and sometimes with Fuxi) in Chinese mythology:

• Creator
• Woman/Man
• Mother
• Goddess
• Wife
• Sister
• Tribal leader (emperor)
• Maintainer
• Repairer
• Sun god/moon god
• Adam and Eve

Some have even suggested that “Nüwa” might be related to “Noah” from the Genesis account, with some parallels between the accounts, such as Nüwa’s sealing of the sky with five colored stones connected with Noah’s rainbow.

Another description of Nüwa and Fuxi and their tools is found in a book entitled The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China by Alfred Schinz:

It appears from these legends that civilization, i.e. ordered human life, begins with two personages, both portrayed as being semi-human and with mermaid tails.  Nüwa and Fuxi, originally sister and brother, later became wife and husband after they had invented proper marriage procedures and family names to prevent marriages between people from the same family.  Nüwa, in her own legend, had restored order between heaven and earth after a horrible catastrophe had caused heaven to tilt to the north so that it no longer covered all of the earth.  This may refer to the first observation of the oblique elliptic and the angle of the pole star.  Nüwa found it necessary to reestablish the four cardinal points, which she did, thereby creating the prerequisites for further observations.  In the oldest pictures of her she carries a compass, the instrument related to heavenly observations.  Her brother Fuxi became the first legendary emperor, which also implies the establishment of government, of law and order… On another, more practical level he is said to have invented axes for splitting wood, the carpenter’s square, ropes for hunting and fishing nets.  It is worthy of special attention that the two words for compass and square, gui ju, used together denote -the rule, custom, usage- and -good behavior-, i.e., keeping order.  Furthermore, it should be observed that the male-female system, the yang-yin philosophy, is expressed here in a complex manner, first as Fuxi and Nüwa, second as compass (male) and square (female), and third as Nüwa (female) with compass (male) and Fuxi (male) with square (female).  The compass-square dichotomy is similar to the heaven-earth, yang-yin, relationship, which in this case means that man (Fuxi) establishes harmonious order between heaven and earth.  This is also expressed in the Chinese character for king, wang, the upper and lower line indicating heaven and earth and the middle line man, all three connected by the vertical line.  This represents the position and function of the ruler; it is he who establishes and keeps order by placing himself in a balanced and harmonious position between heaven and earth, so that yang and yin cooperate in a beneficial way.

[Caption] Fuxi and his sister Nüwa, he with the carpenter’s square and she with the pair of compasses.  From the decoration incised in the wall of the Wu Lang tombs in Jiaxiang, Shandong, second century AD.  The Chinese words for carpenter’s square, ju, and a pair of compasses, gui, together form the expression to establish order.  This is what, according to their legends, Fuxi and Nüwa did.  The carpenter’s square also stands for the square that is the symbol of the earth, while the pair of compasses represent the circle, the symbol of heaven.  Fuxi, the male (yang), gives order to the earth (yin), and Nüwa, the female (yin), gives order to the heaven (yang).

A book entitled The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam by Victor J. Katz and Annette Imhausen relates a practical tradition about the use of these tools in Chinese history:

Here Fu Xi – the first of the “Three Sovereigns” – is shown on the right holding a ju or carpenter’s square.  In some versions of this legend Fu Xi is said to have invented both the carpenter’s square and the compass, or gui – which is held in the above depiction by his consort Nü Wa (on the left).  According to the Chronicles of the famous Chinese historian Sima Qian, the Emperor Yu of Xia (who reigned in the twenty-first century BCE), when attending to floods, carried with him “a plumbline in his left hand and a gnomon and compass in his right” in order to do the surveying required to bring the floods under control [Li and Du 1987, 3].

The Silk Road by Susan Whitfield and Ursula Sims-williams connects the concepts of the compass and the square with the circle and the square:

In traditional Chinese cosmology the earth was square and the heavens round and thus Fuxi holds a set square to draw the former, and Nüwa a pair of compasses to draw the circle of the earth.

Noted by Mark Edward Lewis in Writing and Authority in Early China, these symbols were used to represent cosmic order, a link between heaven and earth, and a favorable environment for the deceased:

This role of linking Heaven to Earth also figures in the depictions of Fu Xi and Nü Wa.  First, in Han tombs their elongated, serpent bodies stretch from the bottom of the register to the top, and in later depictions this vertical ascent becomes even clearer.  In Sichuan sarcophagi they play the iconographic role of the dragons on the Mawangdui banners who physically link the earthly realm to that of Heaven.  This idea is reinforced through the regular inclusion of two other iconogrpahic traits.  Fu Xi and Nü Wa are often depicted with the sun and moon, and they are shown holding a carpenters square (Fu Xi) and a drawing compass (Nü Wa).  The former are metonyms for Heaven and the celestial equivalents of yin and yang.  The latter suggests the linking of square Earth to the round Heaven.  Most scholars agree that the role of the intertwined Fu Xi and Nü Wa was to depict the interaction of yin and yang that underlies cosmic order and thereby secure an auspicious environment for the denizen of the tomb.

Santillana and Dechend offer more explanation for the figures of Nüwa and Fuxi:

The Chinese picture illustrates in true archaic spirit (which means that only hints are given, and the spectator has to work out for himself the significance of the details) the surveying of the universe.  The two characters surrounded by constellations are Fu Hsi and Nu Kua, i.e., the craftsman god and his paredra, who measure the “squareness of the earth” and the “roundness of heaven” with their implements, the square with the plumb bob hanging from it, and the compass.  The intertwined serpent-like bodies of the deities indicate clearly enough, although in a peculiar “projection,” circular orbits intersecting each other at regular intervals. 

In another place some Chinese commentators have noted the uses of these tools in construction or building:

All “great instruments” were invented by the ancients to help lesser men “first rule the self and then rule others.”  Although all are needed in construction, by no means do all these tools work in the same way.  Level and line determine straight horizontal and vertical lines, while compass and square are needed to form perfect circles and corners.  By analogy, each of the social institutions, including ritual, has its own function in building civilization, with each addressing a separate human need.  It is characteristic of the sage-ruler that he always knows which tool to apply to the specific problem at hand.

There are probably hundreds of other sources which describe these symbols in Chinese tradition and mythology.  You can find more by doing a Google Books search for “nuwa square compass.”

I’ve done some image searching and these two figures are almost always depicted holding the same symbols in their hands, and which have been described by many different scholars as the tools of creation and divine order.  See the images below.

Nüwa and Fuxi in Chinese Mythology: Compass & Square

Mysticism

Wikipedia defines this word as:

Mysticism (from the Greek μ�...στικός - mystikos- ‘seeing with the eyes closed, an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries; μ�...στήρια - mysteria meaning “initiation”[1]) is the pursuit of achieving communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the Other, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight.

Basically, mysticism means achieving atonement with God through actions or thought.  Here is how others define the word through a simple Google search:

• The search through various prayers and practices to achieve unity with God in life (theosis) (see hesychasm).
  www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article9152.asp
• direct communion with the divine through behavioral practice
  www.juniata.edu/faculty/tuten/islamic/archive/glossary.html
• The belief that one can achieve direct consciousness of God or truth through meditation and intuition. In mystic practices, one attempts to merge with God or the source of creation.
  www.geocities.com/sorchagriannon/terminology.htm
• Deals with Jewish mystical concepts related to Kabbalah.
  www.judaism.com/glossary/gloss1.asp
• the belief in realities or truths beyond the present reach of reason.
  www.willdurant.com/glossary.htm
• a conscious (and usually disciplined) quest for direct experience of union with the divine.
  ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rels/002/terms/
• The belief that knowledge of divine truth or the soul’s union with the divine is attainable by spiritual insight or ecstatic contemplation without the medium of the senses or reason
  www.innvista.com/culture/religion/diction.htm
• The doctrine that the nature of reality can be known by direct apprehension, by faculties above the senses, by intuition. …
  www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/mp-mz.htm
• Mysticism is the pursuit of achieving communion or identity with, or conscious awareness of, ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is one’s destiny, purpose, or an important source of knowledge …
  www.psychic-experiences.com/glossary.php
• The process of seeking union with God. A mystic is one who seeks union with God through means of meditation, contemplation, and surrender. Mysticism is a devotional, respectful, profound practice; regretfully, its meaning has been diluted and taken too lightly over the years. …
  www.tarotteachings.com/meanings-dictionary-for-tarot-h-p.html
• A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.
  www.jabcreations.com/philosophy/philosophy-definitions.php
• Sometimes called the interior life, mysticism is a way that reaches for immediate (meaning no mediator or other mediating influence) awareness of God, and beyond that, for identity in God (in the words of Catherine of Siena, “My me is God”). …
  www.zoofence.com/define05.html
• A belief that beyond the visible material world there is a spiritual reality which may be called God that people may experience through meditation, revelation, intuition, or other states that takes the individual beyond a normal consciousness.
  www.spiritual.com.au/dictionary/dict_m.html
• The term 'mysticism,' comes from the Greek μ�...ω, meaning "to conceal." In the Hellenistic world, 'mystical' referred to "secret"
  dsj.nwbodybygod.felicitydewdeny.com/encyclopedia_medical_terminology_quincy.html
• Literature that portrays understanding paradoxically, so that the more one understands, the less one knows, implying that an unseen force with a consistent but largely unknown rationale is at work.
  courses.csusm.edu/ltwr325bc/glossary.htm
• a religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality
• The beliefs, ideas, or thoughts of mystics; A doctrine of direct communication or spiritual intuition of divine truth; A transcendental union of soul or mind with the divine reality or divinity; Obscure thoughts and speculations
  en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mysticism

So is mysticism some deep, dark, mysterious thing?  No, but that seems to be our perception of it.  It is even listed in our own Topical Guide with the subtopics “False Doctrine; Sorcery; Superstitions; Traditions of Men.”  But if these definitions above are any indication, in many ways our experience in the temple is precisely a mystical one.  We are seeking direct communion and oneness with God through revelation and behavioral practice, just as the ancients did.

David Littlefield has an excellent blog dedicated to this subject over at Mormon Mysticism in which he quotes Hugh Nibley’s description of mysticism:

…[B]ut that is what Christ meant by the mysteries of the kingdom. He meant ordinances, which were necessary; and these he revealed to the apostles during his very confidential teachings of the forty days after the resurrection. The purpose of such ordinances is to bridge the space between the world in which we now live, the telestial world, and that to which we aspire, the celestial world.

Mysticism is linked with the word mystery, both derived from the Greek mystes meaning “one who has been initiated.”  Mystery or mysteries are words that figure predominantly in the holy scriptures, particularly the phrase “mysteries of God” (see here).  Almost always this is referring to ordinances in which specially prepared initiates may gain a fuller knowledge and communion with deity.

Orientation

As for the word orientation, I learned something new yesterday.  It is pretty plain to see now that this word is derived from the word orient, meaning east.  Originally orientation meant “to arrange facing east,” or “to face the east,” or “arrangement of a building, etc., to face east or any other specified direction” .  William Hamblin and David Seely explain why in their excellent book Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History:

Temples were often carefully aligned with the sun, the moon, and the stars--demonstrating the centrality of a harmonious relationship with the cosmos.  Often temples face east--toward the sun, as reflected by the English word “orientation,” meaning directed toward the east--and sometimes had their corners squared with the four cardinal directions.  The gate of Solomon’s Temple was oriented toward the rising sun in the east, in which direction its priests sometimes prayed (Ezek. 8:16).

To “determine bearings,” or “the action of determining one’s bearings” are also meanings of this word.  Of course, the temple is the ultimate place where “one gets one’s bearings on the universe”.

Words: Mysticism & Orientation

Several scholars, both LDS and members of other faiths, have noted that the temple is a model of the universe:

• The temple is a scale model of the universe…
• …the temple represents the principle of ordering the universe.
• [The temple is] for the purpose of taking our bearings on the universe…
• …the temple reflects things as they exist in heaven-things as they really are.
• The temple embodies “the structure of the universe, so that ascent through the heavenly levels [is] also a journey ‘inward’ through the temple’s concentric areas of increasing holiness to the Holy of Holies at the center.”
• …the temple (whether earthly or heavenly) is a miniature imitation of the structure of the universe.

God’s perception of time and space are incomprehensible to our mortal and finite minds (Isa. 55:8-9).  However, if the temple is an accurate model of the universe, then it should be possible to reproduce an approximate visual representation of the universe from what we learn from the temple, which is what I’ve attempted above.

The concentric circles represent the various degrees of glory. The red arrows indicate the path that the earth has taken from its terrestrial creation, its fall to a telestial state (our current state), its renewal to a paradisaical terrestrial glory during the millennium, and then its final purification when it is made a celestial sphere, and, according to Elder McConkie, “no one can live on it who does not conform to a celestial law. Hence, in that day it will be reserved for those who are saved and exalted” .  The other planets shown represent the other innumerable worlds that now stand at some point in their progression from creation to celestialization (Moses 1:35).

Note that this is an attempt at an actual representation of the universe, so the earth would actually physically travel the path away from and back to the presence of God, passing through the different stages and levels.  Indeed, the end of times sign of the “stars falling from heaven” has been described as the earth moving through space rather than the stars moving (Rev. 6:12-13; D&C 29:14; D&C 88:87; D&C 133:49).  The pre-mortal world starts at the center of the celestial circle (in the presence of God).  The spirit world is in the same location as the earth is, albeit in the different dimension.  Our celestial kingdom will be upon this earth back in the center of the celestial circle and in the presence of God.

How accurate do you think this representation is? How could it be improved?  What are your thoughts on the relationship between this model and the current scientific model of the universe we know today?  Where do you think those who inherit the terrestrial and telestial kingdoms will reside in the universe?  What have other prophets and apostles said about the structure of the universe that might help improve the representation?  Where does our solar system, galaxy, and visible universe fit into this representation?

If we get convincing comments I will update this graphic to reflect the newfound insights.

Temple as a Scale-Model of the Universe